S13 rear hatch not getting power

[Asakura]

So I was driving home the other night and it was cold and raining, so I turned on the rear wiper and defrost. It worked for about 5 minutes then both of them just stopped working all together and I could smell something burning. I've since discovered that my brake lights don't work either, but my parking lights do. I've looked over the wiring and fuses, and I had to replace the 20A RR DEFOG fuse but all the others were good. The bulbs are all good, the gromet going from the hatch into the car isn't chopped or anything, so I suspect it could be a bad ground. Since the defrost, wiper and brakelights aren't working, is there a main ground somewhere I can check?? Has anybody else had this problem before? Not having brake lights is scary and illegal so I want to have this fixed asap.

thanks in advance

[Asakura]

So I decided to double check everything, and it turns out that my brake lamp fuse and wiper fuse was blown as well. I tried replacing them all but they just died right away. I'm clueless as to where to start looking since the wiring all looked good when I inspected it yesterday.

Anyone??

[moso]

somewhere along the way you have a short, pull the fuses and use a multimeter to see if there is continuity between the brake, defrost, and wiper circuits. if so you know they are melted together somewhere. those wires travel along the same harness from the hatch all the way to the fuse panel. you can track them with the harness diagram in the fsm. it shows the wires from the hatch going out the top of the hatch, around past the tail lights and down the drivers side of the car. it also shows the hatch has two sub harness inside it so check there too.

[vancouverbc]

the wires entering the hatch door through the grommet are likely going to be be missing insulation or completely severed.